Scott Pilgrim and the Trouble with Vengeance
by kanikkers
Summary: The exes are dead, Scott and Ramona are finally okay, and everything finally seems to have settled down. Cut to the boring little life of Tess Bitner, whose dreams have taken a rather weird turn...


AUTHOR'S NOTES: Hey, all! Finally getting this thing running again. I have a few more chapters of Into the Inferno that I'll be publishing as soon as I retype them (the files got corrupted on my computer, sadface), but that fic is on hiatus at the moment. This is my newest story, which I have quite a few plans for. Comments + crit greatly appreciated!

xxxxxxx

A long time ago, in the faraway land of Toronto, Canada, Tess Bitner was having a sucky dream.

Usually, sucky dreams were sucky because sucky stuff happened. Like missing a shift at work and getting fired and becoming homeless. This was different. There was a blank white room and she was standing there, a bit puzzled, and nothing was happening.

She was going to go fucking _insane_.

And then suddenly there were people: an Indian guy with shittons of eyeliner and his entourage of what looked like regular girls except for the horns and devil tails and fireballs in their hands. Tess sighed in relief. This was better.

But only marginally. "Uh, who are you?" she asked, voice bouncing off the walls. The guy looked just as lost as she was, standing there in his striped shirt and ridiculous boots, hands balled into fists. He looked ready to deck someone. His furious gaze finally focused on Tess.

"What is this? What just happened?"

This did little to clear things up. "Uh, I went to sleep? What the fuck are you doing here?"

They stared at each other, and the girls looked around aimlessly. One of them sneezed a fireball. There was a long, awkward silence before Tess tried again.

"I mean, this is my dream, right? I shouldn't be dreaming about people I don't know, like random guys and weird Goth girls…"

"Demon hipster chicks."

"…Sure, demon hipster chicks. But what are you doing here? I don't even know you."

"Yeah, that _is_ pretty weird," the guy agreed, looking around at the nothingness. He seemed to have calmed down a bit. "But I don't know how all this subspace stuff works, anyways, I just do the demon hipster chick stuff. I'm Matthew, by the way."

"Tess," she replied automatically, latching on to the only part of his explanation she could understand. They shook hands, and Tess stuffed hers back into the pockets of her pajama pants. Then she repeated, "I still don't get this."

"Hey, I'm just as lost as you are." He shrugged. "I hope this doesn't mean I'm dead or anything."

"Yeah, that would suck," she agreed. She stood lost in thought for a moment, before furrowing her brow. "Hold up, I'm dreaming about a bunch of hot demon girls in cutoffs. Does this mean I'm secretly a lesbian or something?"

"Huh. Maybe." They both looked at the girls for a moment, then Matthew broke the silence, staring awkwardly at the wall. "W..we should probably make out, just to be sure."

Tess blinked.

"Oh, right."

And so they did.

xxxxxxx

"One grande caramel macchiato, please."

The waitress nodded at Tess Bitner (Age: 24, Rating: Poor as Shit), then glanced pointedly at Leah. "No, she's not getting anything."

"Even though it's my money," Leah added, picking at a nail. Tess gave her a dirty look and shrugged at the waitress, who clearly didn't care. She disappeared into the back to make the drinks.

Later at their table, Tess rapped Leah on the head with her straw. "I totally forgot to tell you, I had this super crazy weird-ass dream last night. There was this guy…"

"Hold up," Leah interrupted, fending off the straw and wiping melted whipped cream out of her hair, "you actually _slept_ last night?" She shoved her chair back, half standing with a dramatic palm to her forehead. "I have to _tell_ someone!"

Tess frowned. "I sometimes get the feeling you think you're witty."

"I sometimes get the feeling I'm right. Hey, how's the new job going for ya? Bartending, nice," Leah said, yawning. "Bet _that's_ fun."

Tess shrugged noncommittally, stirring her drink. "I've only had two shifts."

With a snort, Leah corrected, "That's a no."

"Are you gonna let me tell you about my super crazy weird-ass dream?"

"Are you gonna pay me back for that coffee in less than a month?"

They stared each other down for a moment, then Tess replied lamely, "Then I guess we're at a standstill."

"I've gotta get back to work," Leah sighed, standing up and grabbing the shoulder bag from the back of her seat. "Some of us have regular work hours."

"Yeah, well…" Tess didn't finish her sentence, instead chugging the last of her free frap. She really didn't like her new job. Really, really, _really_ didn't like it. Yes, it was bartending, and yes, it was typically the most desired job for newly-graduated twenty-something-year-olds who had a degree in anthropology and nothing to do with it, but it had been a last resort. Nobody wanted PR reps unless they'd jumped through the business school hoop.

Meaning, she'd applied for fifteen legitimate jobs and been passed over for each one.

Meaning, she'd had to settle for a recommendation from a friend that she "mixed a mean Bomb Pop" and had thusly been hired on as a bartender at Drink in a Cup.

The management was shit, the pay was shit. The hours were especially shit; most of the time she did the lousy eight hour shifts that kept her up the whole night. By the time she got home in the morning, she was too jumped up on coffee from her break to get any sleep. Of course, this sleep schedule wasn't really unusual for Tess. She hadn't been sleeping well since…well, for the last few weeks.

And now that she thought about it, maybe that's why she was having weird dreams about random Indian guys and a white room. Well, maybe that was also a tribute to how she was slowly but surely becoming exposed to what Leah called "the world".

She caught up to Leah at the door. Leah Turnstead (Age: 23, Rating: Angelically Altruistic) was one of the few people who tolerated Tess and her poor, neurotic, stupid ass. They'd met only months ago and become fast friends because, as Leah put it, it was always nice to have a friend to make fun of.

Tess didn't appreciate the joke much, but her central nervous system appreciated the free coffee she got every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, so she couldn't complain.

"I'll call about the party next Saturday, so pick up your damn phone for once," Leah said loudly over the wind as they stepped outside. Tess fixed her scarf snugly around her neck; she liked winter, but not when she had to be in the middle of it. "I haven't gotten the location yet from Mark, but it's probably a costume…"

"Wait, what?" Tess stared at Leah. "The wind made it sound like you said party. And Mark. And costume. What and who the hell are all those things?"

Leah frowned. "You're stupid, Tess, but you're not _that_ stupid. Think. Party. Saturday."

"Party…" Tess repeated blankly. "Satur…Oh, that one you said your friend invited you to so you wanted me to come along but I said I didn't want to go so you put me in a full nelson until I said I'd go but I was totally lying?"

"Yes. That one."

Tess smiled, pulling on her gloves before heading off down the sidewalk. "Glad we're straight about that."

"You're not getting out of this, Tess!" Leah shouted after her. "You are going to get a life if it's the last thing I do!"

xxxxxxx

"Is that a futon? I think that's a futon."

Matthew looked up from a stack of magazines that he'd been combing through. Tess was pointing at what was very clearly a futon sitting in the corner of the now not-so-empty white room.

"Oh, yeah, sorry," he said, picking up another one of the magazines. It soon joined its brethren in the quickly growing discard pile. "It was kind of uncomfortable hanging in here without anything…"

"C'mon, I brought you the magazines."

"Yeah…" They both looked at the pile of discarded ones. "They're old."

"Picky whore," she commented. Last month's issue of People hit her in the face.

"This is just a distraction, anyway. I'm still trying to figure out how I got here," Matthew said, finally setting down his magazines, "and how the hell Pilgrim did it."

Tess shrugged, taking a seat on the floor nearby. "I have no ide…," she started to say for what was probably the hundredth time, then paused and looked up from a spread on Brad Pitt. "Pilgrim? What's that?"

"Who."

"…What?"

"WHO's that."

"Who's who?"

"What…?"

"…I'm not being Castello."

Matthew gave her a weird look. "WHO's that. Not 'what's that'. Pilgrim is a who."

"Ohhh." Tess scratched her elbow. "Okay, so WHO's Pilgrim?"

He froze, "The bane of my existence."

"Woah there," she said, grinning, "strong words. What's your deal with this guy?"

"Yeah, I definitely don't want to go into it right now," Matthew replied, rubbing his forehead. "Too soon."

Tess shrugged, consenting for the moment, and after a moment asked, "Do you ever re-do that guyliner?"

"Guy…? Oh." Matthew touched a finger to his eyelid and took it away, shaking his head. "I'm just careful about it. Waterproof and all that. Gotta protect the image."

"Oh, right, gotcha." She grabbed one of the magazines. "Never met a guy who wore makeup before..."

"Never met a girl who dreams about demon chicks before."

"Your fault. Not mine." Tess sighed, flopping down on the futon; Matthew cleared his throat and shoved her feet off his legs, scooting farther down the couch. "Gaaaaawd, I do not want to go to work today, my boss is a douche and my coworkers are idiots…"

"Sucks."

"You sound _so_ interested."

"I am _so_ interested."

"Fine, maybe I'll just…" But Tess never got to say what she might just, because at that moment a loud buzzing interrupted her and she looked to the white ceiling. "What the hell…?"

And then she woke up in her own bed to find the sun setting outside the window. She blinked groggily, then reached over to her nightstand. Popping a few pills and switching off her alarm, she grumbled, "Stupid weird-ass dreams…"


End file.
